I recently finished the novel Under The Blade by Matt Serafini. This was my first read from this author, and what a read it was. Does this novel stand the test of the Mutilated Mohawk? Or is it going to fall short and lead us through rambling pages of nonsense?
***THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS, PLEASE READ THE ORIGINAL WORK BEFORE CONTINUING. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!***
Summary:
The story opens with a classic camp slasher scene. Our main character is introduced, Melanie Holden, and at the very introduction of the book she is surviving one hell of a night. Her friends are butchered left and right by the notorious Cyrus Hoyt, a big scary welder-mask wearing slasher.
Melanie survives the night, and we flash twenty five years into the future. Melanie has become a college professor and is in the battle to get tenure from a not so supportive administration. She then, after being extremely reluctant, goes back to the place she left so long ago, the town of Forest Grove. Melanie has the idea to write the story of the massacre that took all her friends so long ago.
Going into town we meet the new Police Chief Nate Brady, who is an ex- New York cop turned small town sheriff. He has recently moved to Forest Grove with his wife, Trish, who is a goth-rocker rebel from hell. Her father, Ron Sleighton, is the reason that Nate scored the gig in the first place.
Melanie’s return to Forest Grove isn’t the most welcome. The town is quiet and isolated, most people not taking too kindly to Melanie returning. In fact, the town is so quiet and preserved that even things like school dances have been banned because of what happened on the night of the massacre, or so we are led to believe.
As Melanie digs deeper, she fears that Cyrus Hoyt is still alive. The fear that he never died all those years ago when she dealt with him sticks with her through the whole book, until the very end. As she pokes around more and more the unnerving feeling that she is being watched, followed, and maybe even tracked is hard to shake.
Through some backstory we find out that the Forest Grove Massacre that Melanie was involved in wasn’t the first of its kind in the town. Years before Cyrus Hoyt slashed the provocative teens, there was another group running through the woods of Forest Grove, the Obviate was spurring a Jesus Christ inspired doomsday message.
As the story progresses, Melanie is attacked by who she believes to be Hoyt, and we find out it wasn’t. A police officer, one of Brady’s own, had turned and was killing people in town. This opens up many doors. Melanie finds out more of the Obviate while Brady is led down a rabbit hole.
The massacre before Melanie’s happened because of the Obviate. Where at first the cult’s message was of love, acceptance, and harmony, it soon turned to much darker things. People were getting murdered and the cult grew into a more fanatic puritan society, hellbent on cleansing and making those who are ‘evil’ repent.
It was only a matter of time before the government got a whiff of this massive commune of crazies. A secret operation was carried out to massacre the entire cult. This is what everyone believed was the end of the Obviate. This is unfortunately untrue, as we find out that the law may have cut off one head of the beast, but five more grew.
We find out that Cyrus Hoyt is the child of the Obviate, created by its priestess, a woman named Zohra. This priestess escapes the carnage of the raid because she leaves with the previous police chief Ron Sleighton. Sleighton takes her in, has kids with her, and lets her continue her teachings in private.
The big twist is when our characters find out that the Obviate merged with the citizens of Forest Grove. Their teachings were carried on in private after the Obviate was raided, and the people of Forest Grove stuck with it. Although not everyone in town is in on it, they have enough numbers to cause one night of chaos.
Review:
So right off the top, I want to say that I found that although there were a ton of characters in this book (from the law enforcement cast, to the members of the Obviate, to Forest Grove’s citizens) the main characters remain interesting and unique. Sure, there were a few times that someone died and I was like ‘wait, who is that again?’ However, the core characters (Melanie, Nate, Trish, Ron, and a few others) are very memorable characters and each play their own role.
I’ve seen some reviews stating that this massive cast of characters ruined the book for them, however I never found it horrible at all. The few chapters where we got introduced to characters who died by the end of that same chapter were well written gore tidbits that were like snacks on the long journey that this book was.
I especially loved one of these little ‘gore gummies’ at the end where we get Tanya and Rafe who are two teen lovers trying to just get it on. I think this scene is probably one of the best and most memorable in the novel as Tanya ends up murdering Rafe at the end by smashing a hammer into his skull and revealing that she is a member of the Obviate. I remember reading this scene and waiting for Cyrus Hoyt to jump out and hack these kids up until Tanya pulled out the hammer and did the job herself. Brutal!
We get some pretty great kill in this book, the death of Chief Nate Brady being a pretty solid one. Although I did enjoy his character, it was a love hate relationship. He was an outsider, trying to wrangle this department that didn’t trust him for the fact that he was an outsider. He is trying to be his own guy and not life in his father-in-law’s shadow. His death scene is pretty gnarly. He is stabbed through the hand and burned alive.
Trish also gets a pretty crazy death scene as she is possessed and her face is bitten by Melanie. Serafini does not disappoint when it comes to these absolutely brutal descriptions, and just about every kill in this novel does a pretty good job at satiating any fan of the splatterpunk genre’s thirst for gore.
When it comes to the story I have my personal ups and downs with how I feel about it. I’ll start with the bad. There are definitely parts to this story that are hard to get through. There are pieces that are very slow compared to its very fast paced opening and blasting closing. The pacing feels incredibly off at times.
I feel that Trish’s character was disappointing. Serafini sets her up to be a pretty important piece in the equation, however it feels like she does nothing at all and is almost useless in the story. I enjoyed having an alternative gothic character in the story, as I love that kind of person in real life, however I was just hoping that she would do more. In the story we find out she was the high priestess’s daughter, when this got dropped my mind went crazy with all the possibilities that could happen. However not one of them came true.
Some of the paranormal aspects lost me at bits. I enjoyed the cult aspect to the story, however when it got heavy into the paranormal aspect I felt that the story was in too many places at once. Its a slasher story, and a small town mystery, and a cult story, and a paranormal story too? It just seemed all over the place for me, however I will say this is a personal critique so I won’t allow that to factor in the final score for this novel.
The good thing about this story is not only the kills, but the twist. There are a few twists and turns throughout this story, and I didn’t see them coming at all. This came to my surprise because I can usually sniff out what the twist is going to be in a story, however I was completely mind blown when we found out that the Obviate had the numbers in Forest Grove and were launching a full scale assault on anyone in their path. I also found the twist that Ron Sleighton, the hardass ex-police chief, fell in love and had a kid with Zohra was crazy. There are a lot of really well written twists in this book, so major points.
I will say, even though there are some slow points in this book, the last 100-130 pages are absolutely riveting. These pages are filled with action, plot twists, and I’d guess it’s almost impossible to put the book down. So the book ends on a great note.
Overall, I’d say that this novel is a great read. It has a strong story, interesting character, great plot twists, and enough gore to keep us entertained. With everything taken into consideration I do believe that this is going to rank a 7.5/10, which is great! This is my first read by Serafini, and I will definitely have to check out more of his work in the future.